R & R, & R & R
by cable69
Summary: Kirk/Spock/McCoy. Another mission comes and goes.


A/N: It occurs to me that doctors don't sew anybody up in this time. … eh.

x

**Rules and Regulations; Rest and Relaxation**

x

Kirk was beginning to feel like there was no time for joy anymore.

Four years. Four years of this. Four years of loving this ship, this crew, this mission. But the love was spreading thin, thinner than the sheen of sweat on his forehead as he hunted around engineering for Scotty's damned toolkit that was, of course, essential to repairing the broken warp drive. Where had that blasted android put it? Thank God Spock had thought to disarm the thing by ripping out its central processor. Kirk wouldn't have come up with that idea for a while; he was too focused on the realism the android's makers had worked so hard on. Those breasts had really seemed to bounce.

Finally he spotted the gray kit underneath a phaser bank. He snatched it out and ran over to Scotty, who was wrist-deep in sparking wires.

"Need anything?"

"A team of trained nuclear engineers would be nice, sir," Scotty growled. "Other than that, just fer you t' stand back."

Kirk stepped backwards. He nearly ran into Chekov, who was holding a phaser limply and looking exhausted.

"We haf finished the last of them, Keptin," he said. "Meester Spock showed us how to remowe their power supply."

"Good for him," muttered Kirk. He turned to the intercom on the wall. "Kirk to bridge."

"Uhura here."

"Tell Mr. Spock that Scotty is effecting repair on the warp drive currently. Mr. Sulu is to lay in a course for Fasil Eight."

"Yes, sir. Course laid in."

"Thank you, lieutenant. Kirk out."

He noticed that Chekov was favoring his right hand. "Sick bay, Ensign," he barked, turning from the shower of sparks that was Scotty's repair efforts. "I should probably come with you," he added as an afterthought, glancing down at his leg. His thigh was bleeding slowly.

"An excellent idea, Keptin," said Chekov, holstering his phaser. "You can see Doctor McCoy that way. And I tink one of them broke my wrist."

"Then you should have gone to sick bay ages ago, Ensign!" They were at the turbolift. "You overeager youngling. Bones will never get off your back if you don't report an injury immediately."

Chekov smiled. "I know, sir, but it was the middle of battle, I could not just leave."

"I suppose that's understandable," said Kirk, relaxing a little. He nodded approvingly to Chekov. "You did very nice work out there."

Chekov smiled back. "Thank you, Keptin. It is an honor to serve aboard your ship."

"You're just saying that." They were on Deck 5, close to the sickbay. "How many did you manage to disable?"

"Five, Keptin. Mr. Spock dealt with fourteen."

"Did he? Remind me to give him a medal."

Chekov coughed a little, trying not to laugh.

They had reached sickbay. McCoy took one look at the both of them and shoved them into beds. He wrapped up Chekov's arm, scolding the whole time, and sent him off to make sure Spock hadn't been injured, which seemed to make Chekov cough again. Then he turned to Kirk, who was pressing a pad of gauze to his leg.

"You cain't keep away from danger, can ya?" snapped McCoy, moving the gauze and preparing a needle and thread. "I'll be damned if you're not dead before the end of this mission. Every crew member on this godforsaken boat'll make millions off their bookies if you hand over command rather'n pass it on over your dead body."

"Your confidence is invigorating," grinned Kirk. His bad-tempered CMO always made him feel better. "Where's Spock?" And Spock too, with his maddening logic.

"Probably on the bridge. Or helping Security toss those damned androids into deep—"

"OW! Fuck, Bones! Fuck fuck _fuck_!"

"Shoulda came to see me earlier," growled McCoy, dabbing antiseptic on Kirk's wound. "Now, I'm not deadenin' it for ya. These stitches are gonna sting a bit."

"Didn't you have to swear not to harm your patients?"

"Dammit, Jim, even Hippocrates'd stab a needle into you."

Spock entered sickbay. His left eye was a painful, swollen green and his neck was ringed with developing bruises. His uniform had been cut open, his upper left arm sliced nearly to the bone. He was also limping.

"My God, man, what'd they do to you?" cried McCoy, abandoning Kirk immediately. "Sit down, sit down. Nurse Chapel, get me the bloodray, more antiseptic, and more thread. What happened to your leg?"

"My leg is perfectly functional, doctor, if slightly sore."

"I'll take your word on that when dogs start talkin'. Pants off."

"I would prefer to have some privacy, doctor."

"Sure, sure." McCoy wrapped a portable screen around the bed. He could just see Kirk levering himself up to try to see over it. "Nurse Chapel, finish the captain's stitching before he splits the rest of him open."

"Aww, Bones!"

"Shut up, captain," said Nurse Chapel sweetly from behind the curtain. Kirk let out a yelp.

"Don't _any_ of you people take that damn oath anymore? OW! Fuckin' fucker _fuck_!"

McCoy rolled his eyes at Spock, who just raised an eyebrow at him. Muttering about Vulcans, McCoy moved to Spock's arm, cleaning and stitching it rapidly. The half-Vulcan did not flinch as the needle plunged in and out of his flesh.

"Good as new," said McCoy, eyeing his handywork. "I'll leave you to get dressed." He slipped out through a part in the screen. Kirk was rubbing his leg moodily.

"This feels so damn routine," the captain said to his CMO. "You know what I mean? You and Nurse Chapel have stitched me up a hundred times in the past couple of years. We're always unloading bodies into space or transporting them back to their homes. Scotty's _always_ repairing the engines."

McCoy shrugged, waving a disinfecting wand over his station. "Sure we never get a moment's peace, Jim. But why would you want to just drift? Then you'd just be… driftin'."

"Profound," said Kirk dryly.

"You know what I mean."

"Alright, I do. But… robots? Come on. We've had those before. Why can't it be something fuzzy for once?"

"You're forgettin' the tribbles."

"… oh yeah. Okay, what about this? A race of creatures that force us to have _lots of sex_."

"_I'd_ sign up for that away mission."

"Who wouldn't? That was rhetorical, Spock," preempted Kirk.

"I was not planning on replying to your query, captain."

McCoy turned to stare at Spock, who had just emerged from behind the screen and was folding it up. "You can't possibly tell me that you _wouldn't_ sign up for that mission. After all those nights—"

Kirk pinched McCoy's leg viciously. McCoy yelped.

"Are you injured, doctor?" asked Spock, approaching with concern.

"Shut _up_," Kirk hissed to McCoy. "Christine's right there, you idiot. Do you want to ruin everything?"

"Sorry," muttered McCoy, rubbing his leg. He smiled ruefully at Kirk and Spock. "I just—forget, sometimes."

"Illogical, doctor," said Spock.

"Quite," agreed Kirk with a grin.

"I have no idea why I love you two," McCoy whisper/growled.

"The subject is a fascinating one," said Spock, whose mouth was curling into the slightest of smiles.

Chapel, eyebrows raised, came over to ask McCoy if he needed anything else. Kirk and Spock elected to return to the bridge. As they left, they brushed McCoy's fingers, and while they walked with a foot of space between them, when they were on the turbolift they stood side by side.

x

"It's a shame that crew relationships are against Starfleet regulations."

"I know. It'd be great if we could actually _talk_ about all of this."

"At least it never gets boring around here."

"You think everybody else is tired of it?"

"Surely not. There's always action, always something to be done. I think it frustrates Kirk, occasionally."

"He would want _more_ action." Uhura took a sip of coffee.

"I don't think that's it," said Sulu, leaning back.

"Yes," said Chekov. "He wants more time with them."

"Definitely," said Chapel. "They're always so professional. Even when Leonard was sewing up Spock, they didn't take advantage of that screen."

"Considerate of them," said Scotty. "But a little sad."

"Yeah."

"I wish we could let them know we don't mind."

"Starfleet regulations..."

"I know. It would just be—nice."

"Yeah."

x

Even when it was just the three of them on the bridge, they did not take advantage of their privacy. They knew better than anyone that the situation could change rapidly. So they remained discreet. Kirk continued to womanize his way out of (and into) dangerous situations. McCoy snarked. Spock raised his eyebrows.

The crew smiled and cooed behind their backs. Starfleet would never find out if they had anything to say about it.

Kirk got over his frustration with same old, same old when the next mission turned out to be on another of those paradise worlds. They solved what was wrong with the place in a matter of hours and spent the next couple of weeks there, ostensibly for Scotty to repair the warp drive again. Nobody commented on the fact that the ship hadn't been used in the attack, or that Kirk had requested that his XO and CMO have rooms right next to his in the compound. Scotty tinkered with the engines anyway, happy to give his command crew some free time.

In Kirk's room, they lay sprawled across each other, laughing and touching. Kirk thought he might never complain again. If the _Enterprise_ could take him through any amount of shit yet still land him with lovers like this, then he never wanted to leave the ship, no matter how many superintelligent beings or conflicted tribal races tried to stop the Federation flagship's fearless forward march.


End file.
